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You are here: Home / Gun Issues / Gun nuts / Meanwhile, In Israel

Meanwhile, In Israel

by | 104 Comments

This post is in: 

They are strengthening gun control:

While Americans blame video games for mass shootings like Sandy Hook, Israel is quietly doing what we should be doing: tightening requirements for gun ownership.

Israel’s State Comptroller is scrutinizing gun control laws after recent incidents where Israeli security guards shot their wives, as well as Sandy Hook massacre, according to YNet.

Israel’s gun control laws are the opposite of America’s, say Israeli officials. “Only those who have a license can bear arms and not everyone can get a license,” the head of the firearms licensing department told the Jerusalem Post. To qualify for a license, Israelis must at least age 21, pass a physical and psychological examination, undergo a background check and then qualify at a licensed shooting range. Gun owners are retested every three years, they get a one-time supply of 50 bullets when they order their weapon, and as of next year, they must keep their gun in a safe.

For a nation that has been at war for more than 60 years, it is notable that Israeli officials estimate that there are only 170,000 weapons that are privately owned in a population of less than 8 million, or a little less than one weapon per 50 Israelis. There are an estimated 300 million weapons in America, or roughly one for every America’s 315 million people. Gunpolicy.org lists a firearms homicide rate of 0.83 per 100,000 Israelis, versus 3.12 in America.

Nothing to see here.

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  2. 2.

    schrodinger's cat

    Switzerland is another example they trot out. Another wingnut talking point, the crime in Australia went up by 200% percent when they banned guns. I read this point in the comment section of a fashion blog run by an NRA lobbyist.

  3. 3.

    Afferent Input

    It’s especially ironic given that our gun nuts are amassing weapons for fear of an invasion from the Muslim hoard. “Do want some Iranian mullah pushing you around telling you what to do? Well, do ya?” Yet, here are the Israelis, with all these freedom-killing restrictions.

    Speaking of which, why do they hate freedom so much?

  4. 4.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    Where’s Whidby? I want him to talk some more about mental illness, video games, and autism.

    Anything but the subject at hand.

  7. 7.

    different-church-lady

    You know what else Israel has? Mandatory military service, where (one assumes) they get some quality training in the proper handling of (and respect for) firearms.

  8. 8.

    Kyle

    But Israel doesn’t face external security threats from other countries, unlike Americ….uh, never mind.

  13. 13.

    different-church-lady

    @Kyle:

    But Israel doesn’t face external internal security threats from other countries lunatics, unlike Americ….uh, never mind.

    That’s probably not really accurate, but it’s closer to the mark in the current context.

  14. 14.

    Turgidson

    I look forward to the pretzels the wingnuts will tie themselves into in their effort to proclaim that Israel is always always always right and never to be questioned, while at the same time they’re a bunch of freedom-hating peaceniks. I suppose they can limit the “Israel is never wrong” dogma to foreign policy.

  18. 18.

    japa21

    Does this mean if some RW nutjob, meaning virtually every avowed Republican in the country, criticizes Israel’s gun policy we can call them anti-Semitic?

  21. 21.

    Mike G

    In Switzerland members of the military reserves keep their military-issue rifles at home; gun ownership among the rest of the population is fairly rare in urban areas. In recent years reservists are no longer issued ammunition to keep at home (apart from quick-reaction forces and MPs), and brandishing the weapon in any context other than military service or a shooting range is a serious crime.

    If the wingnuts want to adopt all these restrictions I’m cool with it.

  22. 22.

    mk3872

    Unfortunately, our country’s Constitution (somewhat) explicitly lists gun ownership as an unalienable right of all citizens.

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @mk3872:

    That’s one interpretation. One I don’t totally buy into, as a lot of these assholes with guns are not participating in a well regulated militia.

  25. 25.

    Jay

    Lately, America’s wingnuts have really been picking and choosing when it comes to Israel and guns. Yes, as Cole points out, gun control is tightening up there, but it’s also true that not a few Israeli teachers are armed. In school, I think.

    So I’d be interested to see how Israel’s new gun control stuff crosses over to its teachers.

  26. 26.

    Turgidson

    OT but speaking of idiotic things, Our Mr. Sullivan wrote a long garment-clutching piece about how poor Mr. Bork was mistreated by those mean ol’ liberals. Smear! Demagoguery! The horror! Never mind that pretty much everything said about the man was true and that the 58 Senators who prevented his appointment to the court were fucking patriots.

  28. 28.

    The Dangerman

    Can you imagine if the Constitution had guaranteed the right to all 4 wheeled vehicles (i.e. guns for militia, wheeled vehicles for mobility)? I think they were fairly Puritan else they could have assured the right to get looped while operating those 4 wheeled vehicles, in which case, we’d have carnage.

  29. 29.

    gogol's wife

    I just spent 45 minutes listening to the very nice woman who cuts my hair go on and on about how we have to do something about these video games. I kept interrupting to point out that you can’t kill anyone with a video game, and that the whole world has violent video games but they don’t have children being massacred. Eventually she switched to mental-health care. I pointed out that the vast majority of people with mental problems don’t kill anyone, and that no one seems to care about it until there’s a shooting, and they don’t care about it for the welfare of the mentally ill person but as some kind of pseudo-solution that will help them stop thinking about the guns, the guns, the guns. Did I make a dent? I’m not sure, but I keep having these conversations. The disinformation is strong out there.

  31. 31.

    Eric S

    Not sure if this or anything similar has been posted in any of the gun control threads but there is a fair amount of research out there backing the idea that guns are important symbols for many owners. I don’t think this is necessarily stop-the-presses news but some explanation and data backing the thought process.

  32. 32.

    El Cruzado

    @mk3872: Not guns, it protects the right to bear ARMS.

    Therefore the Constitution protects my right to brandish my flaming +2 longsword of awesome.

  33. 33.

    Turgidson

    @dedc79:

    Yep. That’s more or less an axiomatic thing with him. The civility of the discourse is what really matters. Except when it’s a Republican being an asshole, which is often OK. Unless they’re being an asshole about gay people or weed. Then it’s not OK. But Democrats being assholes about anything is never OK because coastal enclaves and decadence. And hippies and Bork!

  35. 35.

    KXB

    @Turgidson:

    Oddly enough, the right wing often trots out Israeli methods of profiling and airport security as a model that Americans should use. But, Israel has only one international airport, and it handles only as many passengers as BWI. It would be impractical for a nation of our size with airports like Atlanta and Chicago.

    So Israeli policies that inconvenience “others” are OK, but Israeli policies that might inconvenience themselves is a whole different story.

  36. 36.

    Calouste

    @dedc79:

    Apparently, for Sullivan, it’s far worse to point out that someone is a horrible and dangerous person conservative than it is to be a horrible and dangerous person conservative.

    FTFY.

  38. 38.

    jibeaux

    @gogol’s wife: It’s pretty weird how some people will blame anything and everything for bodies riddled with bullets except the thing that riddled them with bullets.
    In good news from my salon, the little old lady next to me getting her weekly set was saying, “Can you believe that woman kept all those guns in her house like that? That wasn’t the smartest decision she could’ve made, was it?”

  39. 39.

    Sly

    Israel’s State Comptroller is scrutinizing gun control laws after recent incidents where Israeli security guards shot their wives, as well as Sandy Hook massacre, according to YNet.

    School districts everywhere are going to undergo a review of their own safety protocols in the wake of Sandy Hook. Those protocols were instituted virtually across the entire country in the wake of Columbine, and were subject to very little public attention or scrutiny when they were drafted. Almost no political or bureaucratic opposition, either. The reason why Sandy Hook went into an immediate lockdown and the police response was so quick (there is reason to believe that Lanza did not anticipate such a quick response and shot himself before he planned) was because the school, like schools across the country, was required by state law to have a plan in place that would secure students in case of a shooting on the premises. And, as horrible as the tragedy at Sandy Hook was, those regulations probably mitigated the number of lives lost.

    But reviewing gun control policy? Just follow the six stages of conservative opposition:

    1) There is no problem.

    2) To the extent that there is a problem, we cannot fix it.

    3) To the extent that we can fix the problem, it would cost too much relative to the cost of allowing the problem to persist.

    4) To the extent that fixing the problem costs less than allowing the problem to continue unabated, we are not personally obligated to participate in fixing it.

    5) To the extent that we are personally obligated to help fix the problem, doing so would violate some primordial law of nature.

    6) To the extent that fixing the problem would not violate some primordial law of nature, we can never fix the problem completely so we might as well not do anything.

  42. 42.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @jibeaux:

    It’s pretty weird how some people will blame anything and everything for bodies riddled with bullets except the thing that riddled them with bullets.

    Second Amendment goes on shooting spree, First & Ninth Amendments indicted.

  45. 45.

    JohnK

    @mk3872: Amendments to the constitution come and go as is the will of the people. The constitution should be kept up to date to reflect our beliefs and needs. I don’t need a militia or goofball, milkook, run-amucks running around with pistols tucked into their belts. I’m not safer and neither are they. I don’t need guns in my schools, churches, malls, freeways, restaurants, National Parks, public lands or public areas.

  46. 46.

    The Dangerman

    @R-Jud:

    I know this isn’t exactly a family blog, but TMI.

    Great minds, etc., although I couldn’t quite figure out how flaming found it’s way into the picture, without, say, a French Tickler.

  48. 48.

    ericblair

    @R-Jud:

    I know this isn’t exactly a family blog, but TMI.

    If he’s actually got a flaming +2 longsword, he needs to see a doctor. They’ve got ointments for that sort of thing. And they’ve got pills that can get you up to a +3 or even +4, but I’d get moderated if I mentioned them.

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne

    @Sly:

    I remember seeing a quote in a story about Texas talking about arming their teachers from the principal of a rural school who said that they might need a gun there because it could take the nearest law enforcement 20 or 30 minutes to get to them. And I was thinking, “Well, okay, I can see that as a demonstrable need to have a gun, but that doesn’t apply to the urban and suburban schools that make up 90 percent of the schools in this country, so what’s your point?”

    I mean, if you live near the Arctic Circle and grizzly bears are constantly rummaging through your garbage, I have no problem with you having a gun just in case one of them decides to try and come through the door. But people who live in suburban Connecticut don’t have that excuse, and I’m really tired of journalists who let people act like they’re just as endangered by living in a suburb.

  52. 52.

    ranchandsyrup

    My 2013 resolution is to become a 3rd amendment fetishist. Soonergrunt, Cole, military family members and friends, if you are in my neck of the woods I will not quarter you and the gov’t can’t make me. I take the interpretation that this applies to non-active personnel as well.

  53. 53.

    Culture of Truth

    If a gun is kept in a safe, which I fully support, I’m sure it’s useful in case of war or if you want to go hunting, but is it really any good if someone breaks in? Possibly, but I doubt it.

  57. 57.

    Mnemosyne

    @Culture of Truth:

    If a gun is kept in a safe, which I fully support, I’m sure it’s useful in case of war or if you want to go hunting, but is it really any good if someone breaks in?

    This poor bastard in Minnesota probably wishes he’d kept his gun in a safe and had a little more time to think before he acted.

    But, hey, his granddaughter survived being shot by him, so no harm, no foul, right?

  59. 59.

    john

    and they have Universal Health care and public transport;also too “In 2012, Israel was named the second most educated country in the world according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Education at a Glance report, released in 2012. The report found that 78% of the money invested in education is from public funds and 45% of the population has a university or college diploma”
    (Wikepedia)

    what is this,the Socialist Republic of Israel?

  60. 60.

    slightly_peeved

    @Jay:

    their private gun ownership rate is incredibly low (8 per 100 people) so I don’t think their teachers carry. i think their schools have armed guards who carry; that’s what was shown in that picture making the rounds of the woman next to a group of kids holding a rifle.

  61. 61.

    Raven

    Pat Lang would like you to Calm Down on Gun Control. If you want to you can click right over to him from the BJ Blogroll.

  62. 62.

    Roger Moore

    @Culture of Truth:

    If a gun is kept in a safe, which I fully support, I’m sure it’s useful in case of war or if you want to go hunting, but is it really any good if someone breaks in?

    It depends on where the safe is. If it’s in your upstairs bedroom and you hear a prowler downstairs, it’s probably just fine. If it’s in the living room, not so much. That’s why a lot of people talk about trigger locks as an alternative to safes for at least some guns; you can keep a handgun in the nightstand (or a long gun under the bed) with a trigger lock and have it handy fairly quickly. If an intruder gets enough of a drop on you that the trigger lock is a serious impediment, you were probably screwed anyway.

  63. 63.

    MattR

    I have posted this before, but the Israeli military made another change in 2006 which prevented soldiers from beinging their weapons home with them on leave. After that change was instituted, weekend suicides among soldiers dropped 40%.

    @slightly_peeved: From what I understand, if you live in a settlement you can get a gun permit relatively easily for protection (if you want it). If you live in a city, not so much. I am guessing the schools with armed guards are in settlements and perhaps a couple other spots throughout the country. I would be surprised if the average school in Jeruslaem routinely has armed guards present.

  64. 64.

    Patricia Kayden

    I heard a caller on the Bill Press show claim that the 2nd Amendment guarantees every American’s right to own a gun. Bill screamed at him and then hung up the phone.

    I think Americans need to be educated on the fact that nothing in the 2nd Amendment prevents the government from placing restrictions on gun ownership, including passing sensible gun control legislation.

  65. 65.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, too, although I love my parents, I am very glad that I will be staying in a hotel when I go out to visit them in Arizona next week. Because I really would prefer not to be accidentally shot by my own father when I get up to get a glass of water in the middle of the night.

  66. 66.

    Turgidson

    @Sly:

    That formula can be applied loosely to many other policy issues and wingnut reaction to them.

    Eg. No matter what government does to help, there will always be poor people, so government might as well get out of that business entirely. Also too, even one welfare queen moocher invalidates the entire undertaking because socialism.

    There will always be corruption in government, so we might as well get out ahead of it and benefit from it, and there’s no reason to try to alleviate it (also too, our side benefits disproportionately from it, so we’ll stonewall anyone else’s attempts to legislate)

    In a weird inversion of this principle, they seem to think abstinence-only is a great solution to young people banging each other too soon or irresponsibly, which is a complicated issue that can’t be remedied by simple, idiotic policies like that.

    Strangely, though, they seem to think American bombs and bullets can fix just about any problem if applied with enough enthusiasm.

    And much of this stems from the overall disintegration of their ideology from: a) we should be skeptical of government expansion and oppose it where it goes too far; to b) government is too big by definition, and we should rein in government to make it more efficient and cost-effective, but do so in a way that’s not too crazy; to c) government is the root of all evil (except the military) and we should blow up the thing and replace it with a Randian utopia of Galtian awesome, and also Dimocraps/Dummycrats/libtards are evil morans and must be destroyed, too.

  67. 67.

    the Conster

    Israel also has universal healthcare, but Joe Lieberman made sure that his love for Israel didn’t get in the way of making us too much like Israel.

  68. 68.

    Matthew Reid Krell

    @MattR: Jerusalem, maybe. It is, after all, at least in theory a divided city. Whether it’s actually divided is a different story.

    Jaffa seems less likely to have armed teachers.

  71. 71.

    MattR

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I think Americans need to be educated on the fact that nothing in the 2nd Amendment prevents the government from placing restrictions on gun ownership, including passing sensible gun control legislation.

    Pretty sure others have pointed out that the rights guaranteed in the First Ammendment are not absolute – can’t yell fire in a movie theater, can’t perform human sacrifice as part of a religious ceremony, etc. But I think the best analogy may be the restrictions around the right to peaceably assemble and petition the government. I would agree with many liberals that those restrictions have gone too far recently with free speech zones and some of the anti-Occupy tactics, but at the same time I think there is almost universal acceptance that there has to be some sort of regulation around where, when and how people can protest.

    @Matthew Reid Krell: Good point. Probably right.

  73. 73.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Something’s fishy about those numbers.

    The gun ownership rate in Israel is one fiftieth of the U.S. but the firearms murder rate is one-fourth?

  75. 75.

    ? Martin

    @Quaker in a Basement:

    The gun ownership rate in Israel is one fiftieth of the U.S. but the firearms murder rate is one-fourth?

    No, there’s 50x as many guns, but the ownership rate here only about 30% (not 70%). Americans that have guns tend to have many guns each.

    And a lot of the guns in Israel are government issued – not private, so those aren’t counted in that 170,000. So there’s actually a lot more guns in homes than that number suggests, but Israel has been changing from having soldiers take their guns home to requiring them to leave them on base.

  77. 77.

    Eric U.

    when I was reading the second amendment with the local gun owner, he started interrupting me as soon as I got out “a well regulated…”
    He kept telling me it didn’t mean what I said it meant even though I was just reading it to him

  78. 78.

    Soonergrunt

    @schrodinger’s cat: That 200% statistic is (as most things they think and say) a lie. The government of Australia posts their crime statistics publicly available and like every country that has strict gun control (but not a ban) the violent crime rate has continued a decrease that in Australia’s case began a couple of years before the ban in 1996.

  80. 80.

    ? Martin

    @Eric U.:

    He kept telling me it didn’t mean what I said it meant even though I was just reading it to him

    ‘well regulated’ meant ‘well functioning’ in the 18th century. There’s repeated uses of the phrase that could only mean ‘well functioning’ in policies written at the time.

  83. 83.

    Soonergrunt

    @? Martin: Whether it’s “well regulated” in the 21st century meaning, or it’s “well functioning,” private ownership of assault weapons does not further the militia function of the 2nd Amendment.

  84. 84.

    AHH onna Droid

    @mk3872: Um, no. No, it does not. It says the people as a class have the right to bear arms, and gives some context as to how this is supposed to work. For almost two centuries we had pretty comprehensive gun regulation which did not preclude hunting for food or shooting at ethnic groups the government found convenient to suppress.

  85. 85.

    hep kitty

    If anyone is missing Paul Ryan, he’s presently on the floor of the House wearing a clown tie and acting like a complete fratboy asshole

    Srsly, look at what he is wearing right now (CSPAN1)

  86. 86.

    ? Martin

    @Soonergrunt:

    Whether it’s “well regulated” in the 21st century meaning, or it’s “well functioning,” private ownership of assault weapons does not further the militia function of the 2nd Amendment.

    Never suggested that it did.

    Just pointing out that the meaning of ‘well regulated’ changed considerably over the last 250 years. Besides, there’s no need to relitigate the wording of the 2nd amendment. SCOTUS has admitted the state can regulate firearms to quite a high degree – it simply cannot wholesale ban handguns or rifles.

  89. 89.

    Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S.

    Is anybody old enough to remember before there were drunk driving laws? I can’t; but I know that scene in North by Northwest, which came out in something like 1957 or 59, the scene where Cary Grant gets taken in for drunk driving, and the fine was two dollars. O.K., so I know that two dollars was worth more 50 years ago, but still. There was a long time before Americans began thinking about drunk driving as a big deal.

    But when people began raising hell about throwing drunk drivers in jail, were there people who stood up and screamed, “Yeah, but drunk driving laws won’t help people who get hit by trains! This won’t do anything about that. We shouldn’t pass these laws!”? I wonder, since it seems like the gun nuts are using the same logic [sic] with gun control laws: “Well, tighter laws wouldn’t have stopped [insert massacre here], so there’s no point in passing them!”

    In 1972 or 74 in my home town, there was a high school football game after which, a drunk driver hit a student crossing Providence Road. After this, the school district built a footbridge over the road, so students could walk from the hight school to the athletic fields behind the middle school.

    I wonder how brain-dead it would have been for people to fight building the bridge because, after all, lots of students walking to or from school still had to cross Brookhaven Road, and the bridge did nothing to keep students who had to cross the railroad tracks from getting hit by the West Chester local.

    I can’t see how saying, “This or that gun law wouldn’t have saved those children in Connecticut,” is any different.

  91. 91.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Nobody cares about our right to bear arms, nobody! Hell, some people even pissed their pants when I tried to do so, saying that I was insane. I had successfully captured a bear so I went to the hospital to have them remove his arms and graft them on to me. They told me that I was crazy for bringing a live grizzly bear to a hospital! I told them that dead bear arms are useless and that I wanted the biggest, strongest bear arms there are but that I had to settle for grizzly as there are no polar bears nearby.

    For some reason they wouldn’t do it. The bear seemed relieved though.

  93. 93.

    YellowJournalism

    @The Dangerman:

    Great minds, etc., although I couldn’t quite figure out how flaming found it’s way into the picture, without, say, a French Tickler.

    French Tickler…have you ever seen those things up close? Some of them look downright creepy! They’re the last thing a woman wants in there. Well, that and the Republican Party, of course.

    Heard McCain on CNN XM talking about how in affective gun control is. He cited Norway as an example of a country that has very strict gun laws yet still had that massacre with the nut job Nazi guy. So, obviously, according to McCain, strict laws are not the answer. I was yelling at the radio that the guy bought the guns in the US and that they haven’t had four major multiple-victim shootings in the last six months. I almost called him a dickhead out loud, but my kids were in the back of the car. I flipped it to Xmas music instead.

  96. 96.

    pseudonymous in nc

    Say what you like about Israel — and there are a whole lot of settlers that are frankly American gun nut compoundistas — but the country is not short on a sense of collective responsibility.

    And that is the problem: the NRAGOP-dripfed mentality that you’re on your own and only you are tough enough to protect yourself with the aid of [gunco]’s latest piece of hardware. It is directly opposed to the social contract.

  97. 97.

    Raven

    @Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S.: In the movie “The High and Mighty” with John Wayne a jealous loved pulls out a 38 on the plane over the Pacific. He fires a round and the passengers subdue him and take it away. After he calms down they guy who wrestled the gun away says “I’ll give it back to you when we land”!

  98. 98.

    sheithappens

    Don’t have to look as far as Israel. Just look at Canada.

    Want a hunting rifle? No problem. You just have to pass a basic safety course and basic background check.

    Want a handgun….well that is much much more difficult. Detailed background checks that take weeks, special training courses. You have to keep the gun at a gun club and have to inform the police when you are transporting it (I think).

    Want an assault rifle? Forget it! In other words, reasonable laws and regulations.

  99. 99.

    FlipYrWhig

    @? Martin: “Well-regulated” also suggests well-trained and well-equipped, both of which are consistent with keeping weapons in “public stores” like armories, and not at home.

  100. 100.

    Joey Maloney

    @Jay:

    Lately, America’s wingnuts have really been picking and choosing when it comes to Israel and guns. Yes, as Cole points out, gun control is tightening up there, but it’s also true that not a few Israeli teachers are armed. In school, I think.

    Absolutely not true. The only person armed at an Israeli school is the security guard at the entrance.

  102. 102.

    Kyle

    @El Cruzado:

    Not guns, it protects the right to bear ARMS.

    Maybe it was a typo. The Founding Fathers were protecting the right to bare arms. Tanning being a big issue in 18th century militias.

  104. 104.

    Li

    So, all we have to do to reduce gun violence by three fifths is to require gun safes and usage, mandatory training and ammo limits, confiscate 98% of privately owned guns, and convert to Judaism en-masse? Which would in turn require replacing five supreme court justices, enduring a civil war, and a literal fucking miracle.

    I prefer my plan, which involves peace pixies plugging up all gun barrels with love putty and sprinkling every violent crazy with pixie-prozac. My plan requires a lot less blood-letting, and is much more likely to be implemented too!

    Israel might be a great model for health care reform, but it is inconceivable that their gun control schema could ever be implemented in this country. We can’t magically wish away or confiscate the presence of 296 million of the guns that are out there, and any attempt to do so is bound to meet with failure at best, or civil war at worst. We need an alternative modality if we want to solve the violence problem.

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